


Reversal

by vassalady



Category: Captain America (Comics)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 23:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5605135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vassalady/pseuds/vassalady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arnie Roth wakes up to find himself young and Steve old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reversal

**Author's Note:**

> Set roughly during current comics, in that Sam is Cap and Steve is old. My Steve is not a buff old Steve, but an old Steve a la She-Hulk. 
> 
> This is part of my [365 Days of Fic (Plus One)](http://vassalady.tumblr.com/post/136407810500/) challenge.

Everything _hurt_ , and Arnie didn’t know why. He managed to open his eyes. He saw a flash of color - Steve’s shield? And the person holding it… Not Steve. Why…?

The pain overwhelming him, Arnie gave in.

\--

_”You cannot stop the Vindicator!”_

_”Didn’t you hear? That name’s already taken.”_

“And that,” Arnie said pointing to the masked villain who called himself the Vindicator, “is me?”

“That’s you, alright,” Steve said. “The question is how it’s you.”

Arnie looked away from the screen toward Steve. The face he met, however, was not the youthful appearance that Arnie had once been surprised at, so many years before. Instead, Steve’s face was lined, as lined as Arnie’s was supposed to be. Steve sat in the chair next to Arnie’s bed; they were in one of SHIELD’s medical facilities. A cane leaned against Steve’s chair.

Arnie couldn’t help but touch his own face. There was no mirror in the room to remind him of his own changed appearance, but he could feel the smoothness of his own skin, hear better, see sharper. He felt as strong as he looked, as he did in his prime during the war.

But Arnie had been old before. He’d gotten sick. He remembered all that. He thought he was going to die. Steve said he had.

Yet somehow, here he was, young again, alive, and with every memory up to shortly before his death. Then there was nothing before the very brief moment on that battlefield, with victory for Captain America - Sam, now, not Steve - and defeat for this Vindicator fellow. For Arnie himself. Or whomever had been controlling him maybe.

There was an agent stationed outside the door until they could verify he was no longer a threat. Or maybe until they could prove he was actually Arnold Roth and not some LMD or a shapeshifter or any number of other possibilities. 

He could be a clone, but if he was, Arnie wasn’t sure if they’d let him go or not.

“We seem to have swapped places, Stevie” he said, forcing a grin. Steve returned it, and Arnie was glad to see that there was real amusement there.

“I shouldn’t be surprised at this kind of thing, anymore,” Steve said, “not at my age, anyway.”

They shared a laugh, and it helped to alleviate just a little of Arnie’s worry.

\--

SHIELD dug up his grave, but there was no body. They performed test after test, and when Arnie wasn’t being poked and prodded, he was in briefing rooms, recounting personal information to prove he was Arnold Roth.

When he was asked, again for the fifth time, to recount Michael’s death, Arnie snapped. He slammed his hands down and yelled, “No matter how much I tell you, you’ll never damn believe me, will you?”

Steve did come in then, leaning on his cane, and dismissed the interviewer. Despite protests, Steve took Arnie out from the facility. 

Arnie felt the tension suddenly release as he breathed in the fresh air. He looked toward the sun and spread his arms out. 

“Thank you,” he said after a few minutes. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. It was nice, having it again, thick and full and so young like the rest of him.

“I believe you,” Steve said, quietly, and Arnie’s heart ached. Was this how Steve had felt? To see his friend, aged and so different.

“I don’t even know if I really am me,” Arnie said. “I feel like me, except for, well, you know. But what if I’m not?”

Steve shook his head. “I can’t answer that,” he said, “but I can say that, no matter what, you have to do what you think is right.”

Arnie couldn’t help the laugh he gave. “Do you remember that week it rained solid? We were, what, ten?”

Steve laughed, too. “Thought I could get some quiet for once.”

“But I dragged you out to play in the puddles anyway. You were soaked through, and your mother was so mad.”

“It was the fact we dripped on her sheets, that’s what made her so mad.”

“Right,” Arnie said. His grin faded as he gazed up at the blue sky. “It was stupid and fun. Then we grew up. You died. I went on, and then bam, you’re back. And then you’re the one saving me all the time. Still are. That smarted.”

He felt Steve’s hand at his elbow. Arnie met his eye, and once again, he was struck by how strange Steve looked, how old. Yet here he was, still doing he can to be a hero, a drastic change from the bookish child Arnie had once known.

Stevie had grown up well. 

“I’ve always believed in you, Arnie. Even when I didn’t believe in myself. Don’t forget that.”

“Thank you, Stevie.” 

Steve pulled him in for a hug, and Arnie clung to him as hard as he dared. Even if everything was different, even though he was young and Steve old, even if he was just some clone, he had this moment.

He had a second chance, more than most ever got, and he was not going to waste it worrying any longer.

When they pulled apart, Steve hooked an arm through Arnie’s and gestured before him. “Take a walk?”

“Please. I’ve been talking so much this past week, you haven’t had a chance to tell me a thing that I’ve missed. Sam’s Cap now? And what’s this I hear about a son?”

“That’s a long story,” Steve said.

“I have the time.”


End file.
